When I was young (no rude comments please) there was on Smiths crisps, for they had the patent on this potato snack. So, just like under socialism, there was no need to improve or increase their product range. When the thirty year patent to,e was up, another brand suddenly leapt on to the market, having ditched the idea of a blue bag of salt for ready salted crisps. Soon after other flavours and other brands appeared as the forces of capitalism leapt forward to improvise and give the consumer better and more varied products. I suspect the the bloke in your picture is eating cheese and onion flavoured crisps. This would never happened if Jeremy Corbyn was leader. However, there is a twist in the tale. For though I embraced all the ghastly chemical flavours that were on offer, I increased by natural hatred for salt and now cannot stomach anything in the crisp line that is not plain. So life for me has gone full circle and I would gladly accept the sole purveyor of crisps with a blue bag of salt that I can give to others with more taste for this mineral.

Richard Trim: you could have just said ''I only eat plain crisps'' instead of pontificating and waffling a thousands words.

I actually have myself gone onto plain unsalted crisps ..though I don't have them very often. Guidelines suggest people need less than 6grms of salt a day ... We actually only need about 1 1/2 grms. There was a Radio 4 article addressing the health dangers of too much ultra-processed food like sausages bacon and hams etc.

What a lot of interesting comments today, Richard. I am going to be boring and note that no one is sharing crisps, or more to the point, conversation

Richard Trim: Yes, the authors of the comments are mostly some smart amiable rogues who like to bounce out marginally provocative thoughts. All because someone was eating some unhealthy crisps for their lunch. You are very observant about Londoners ... no friendly chat to a passerby and certainly no eye contact.